Big Brother is Watching You – IRS Using Social Media to Collect Taxes

Social Media Profiles and Google Searches are now being used as tax collection tools by the IRS, state revenue agents and others.

The IRS and state revenue agents have begun using social media outlets like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook to track down “tax deadbeats” who brag about upcoming revenues online.

Seems these revenue agents are not supposed to use “friending” someone with false information as part of this process, so they can only look at public profiles in their search for revenues. However, with MySpace profiles defaulting to “public”, there’s apparently lots to be found there. Google searches can also reveal a lot of info, such as job changes and relocations.

According to the Wall Street Journal (which shares a common corporate parent with MySpace), “Agents in Nebraska collected $2,000 from a deejay after he advertised on his MySpace page that he would be working at a big public party.”  Jim Eads, director of the Federation of Tax Administrators said, “These new supplements [internet searches] are often far more efficient than the older ones, such as reading the local newspaper or making inquiries at barbershops and church meetings.” Well, we wouldn’t want the IRS to be wasting time talking with our hairdressers and crashing our parties now, would we?

Social media is a great tool for communicating with peers, reconnecting with friends and building business relationships, but this does illustrate how others may use your online updates for purposes other than what you intended. Do remember that what you post to your social media profile is public information, and be sure to keep that in mind before you hit “share” or “update”.